Slick New Overhaul Brings Rank Tracking Back To Raven Tools

Late last year, many Raven Tools users were surprised to find that Search Engine ranking data had been removed. Under pressure from Google, Raven yanked the SERP data and focused the tool on helping SEOs and Internet Marketers with analytics tools. Well, Raven users that have missed the tracking data can now rejoice, as rank tracking for your website is coming back to Raven (along with major UI changes.)

Raven will now be leveraging Google Webmaster Tools (WMT) data to display ranking information for a users’s site. This will operate along the same lines as Rimm Kaufman’s Blueprint Search Analytics tool in that it will pull accurate data from one’s site and monitor progress. The rank tracking tool also ties in other Google data including Google Analytics and Google AdWords data.

While WMT currently holds information for 90 days, the new Raven tool will store the data for future use. This new rankings feature will now solely leverage Webmaster Tools APIs to display rankings rather than using scraped data. Additionally, seeing that no scraped data is being leveraged, users will only be able to see ranking data for sites they have WMT access to.

In addition, the new Raven app has a much more streamlined appearance. A thin alert banner is featured at the top of the page that lets users export or print from any page. Navigation on the left rail is always present to help direct users to proper reports. The design puts a focus on the data and reporting and will also be responsively capable in the coming months.

There has been a debate about just how accurate WMT data is for companies, especially for larger, enterprise sites. Raven Co-Founder Jon Henshaw told us:

“In most of our testing, the ranking position data from GWT was equal to or more accurate than data that came from rank trackers that scrape. The key factor when looking at GWT data is to ignore any results that have impression and clicks that are less than 10. The majority of the results above that threshold are quite accurate.”

The new Raven Tools app and Rank Tracking will be launched the first week of August and will not affect the current Raven pricing. See Raven Tools for more information.

About The Author

Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that provides world-class social media and search marketing services and web & application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 10+ years and specializes in Digital Marketing. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn.